Analysis on Tour Escort Interpreters’ Roles Based on Goffman’s Participation Framework

—As China further deepens its reform and opening-up, it has seen increasing demand for tour escort interpreting. In order to analyze roles that tour escort interpreters undertake in their interpreting activities, explain the reasons underlying their roles and propose relevant suggestions for interpreters to improve their interpreting performance, this paper uses case study method to study tour escort interpreters’ complicated roles based on Goffman’s Participation Framework. It finds that tour escort interpreters play the roles of “addressed recipients” and “unaddressed recipients” in the “reception format” and “animators”, “authors” and “principals” in the “production format”. The paper then explains reasons underlying these roles: speakers’ care for interpreters, interpreters’ cross-cultural communication ability, differences of sentence structures between Chinese and English, interpreters’ preparation for interpreting tasks and speakers’ multimodal methods when talking contribute to interpreters’ complex roles. Finally, this paper proposes that tour escort interpreters should notice different sentence structures between Chinese and English, be well-prepared for their interpreting tasks, nurture their cross-cultural communication ability and pay attention to speakers’ multimodal methods when they are talking so as to improve their interpreting performance.


I. INTRODUCTION
Tour escort interpreting refers to the activity of interpreters' providing interpreting services during tour escort. In recent years, China has further deepened its reform and opening-up. During this process, more and more foreign tourists have come to China for traveling or even permanent living, fostering an enormous market for tour escort interpreting.
Tour escort interpreting differs from conference interpreting and has its unique characteristics. First, in conference interpreting, settings are often fixed and there are few interferences with interpreters' interpreting. Therefore, interpreters can take notes to help themselves with interpreting. However, in tour escort interpreting, interpreters often need to move along with the speakers, making it hard to take systematic notes in order to help them interpret [1]. Also, settings of conference interpreting are formal and it is hard for interpreters to talk and interact with speakers; but in tour escort interpreting, interpreters can ask the speakers for Manuscript  information or verify the information when they do not understand the source information or do not hear it clearly due to special proximity between them and the speakers. At this moment, interpreters are taking part in the conversations, making the conversations more complicated. However, according to Code of Professional Conduct set by UK's National Register of Public Service Interpreters (NRPSI), "Practitioners shall interpret truly and faithfully what is uttered, without adding, omitting or changing anything; in exceptional circumstances a summary may be given if requested…shall not enter into discussion, give advice or express opinions or reactions to any of the parties that exceed their duties as interpreters [2]." If assessed by these requirements, tour escort interpreters above who interfere with the conversations for more information or explaining have violated the interpreting requirements, going beyond their "typical roles" and showing "role performance [3]".
In tour escort interpreting, interpreters may show complicated roles like "question raiser" apart from their "typical role". What have caused the "role performance", and how can interpreters avoid unsuitable roles in interpreting? Considering the importance of tour escort interpreting and impact of interpreters on conversations between speakers and hearers, this paper studies interpreters' roles and underlying reasons by analyzing interpreting activities the author has engaged in based on Goffman's Participation Framework in order to propose suggestions for interpreters to take on their "typical roles" and avoid relevant "role performance" to improve their interpreting performance.

II. LITERATURE REVIEW
In 1981, Goffman Erving put forward the "Participation Framework" in his book Forms of Talk, and pointed out that communication could be divided into "Dominant Communications" and "Subordinate Communications", and people in the framework were grouped into "hearers/recipients" and "speakers" [4].
According to Goffman, "speakers" in the participation framework are the core roles, and they consist of three sub-roles: 1) The first role is "animators", who are like a "talking machine" or "sounding box". They produce sounds in their mouth with "facial gesticulations" and "bodily gesticulations". Because they do not express their emotions and are not responsible for their words, they are just "functional nodes" in communication activities instead of an actual social role. 2) The second role is "authors". When communicating with others, authors choose their sentiments and the words containing the sentiments to express, and they Analysis on Tour Escort Interpreters' Roles Based on Goffman's Participation Framework are the encoders of utterances. For authors, they are responsible for their usage of languages, but they are not responsible for the contents of the utterances.
3) The last role is "principals", who express their ideas, stances and believes through their own utterances, thus being responsible for what they say. Sometimes, what principals say not only represent themselves but also the ideas and stances of the organizations they belong to [4]. For "Hearers/recipients" in the framework, they consist of "ratified recipients" and "unratified recipients". For "ratified recipients", they are further divided into "addressed recipients" and "unaddressed recipients". "Addressed recipients" are those whom the speakers cast their eyesight on and whom sometimes the speakers want to express something. As for "unaddressed recipients", they are the remaining ratified recipients except for the addressed recipients [4].
After Goffman proposed his Participation Framework, researchers and scholars both abroad and at home have carried out studies about interpreting based on his framework.
Firstly, researchers abroad have conducted researches on interpreting with the help of Goffman's Participation Framework. Edmonson analyzed sub-roles of conference interpreters based on Goffman's Participation Framework [5]. Wadensjö, based on Goffman's division of "speakers", proposed three sub-roles of speakers, namely "responders"who take conversation turn and say their own words, "replicators"who summarize the words spoken by others and "reporters"who repeat the words spoken by others [6]. Jieun Lee, by analyzing the performance of two non-professional court interpreters participating in the expert testimony in a simulation Korean criminal court, the participation of on-site court participants and the court trial results, reached a conclusion that non-professional court interpreters usually encounter interpreting difficulties when participating in criminal trials, which makes the two interpreters often interact and interfere with each other's interpreting activities and even the court trials, making the originally complex court interactions more complicated [7].
At home, researchers also have used Goffman's Participation Framework to study interpreting. Ren Wen, a professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University, surveyed the development of Goffman's Participation Framework, expounded the "recipient format", "production format" and "footing" under this framework, and analyzed the identities of interpreters as "listeners" and "speakers" by using this framework. She pointed out that interpreters as "recipients/listeners" are "unaddressed recipients/listeners", and as "speakers" are "animators", "authors" and "principals" in general situations [8]. Feng Yanping, a postgraduate student of Xi'an International Studies University, based on her interpreting practice, divided the roles of interpreters as "speakers" into "repeater", "responder", "question raiser", "co-interlocutor", "explainer" and "turn guide" [9]. Guo Yuchen, a graduate student of Shanghai International Studies University, based on Goffman's Participation Framework, analyzed the roles of Zhang Lu as interpreter of the Press Conference for the National People's Congress in 2017, 2018 and 2019, and she also analyzed the reasons why Zhang Lu undertook these roles [10].
After surveying researches at home and abroad, the author finds that researchers at home and abroad have used the Goffman's Participation Framework to analyze the roles of interpreters in such venues as meetings and courts. However, there are more sub-roles to be explored and analyzed in the framework based on actual interpreting practice. Therefore, the author of this paper analyzes the roles of tour escort interpreters based on the Goffman's Participation Framework, explores the deep reasons behind these roles, and puts forward some suggestions for future tour escort interpreters to improve their quality of interpreting.

III. DECONSTRUCTION OF THE ROLES OF TOUR ESCORT INTERPRETERS
According to Goffman's Participation Framework, the roles of people involved in the conversation are divided into "recipients/listeners" and "speakers", and interpreters also undertake these two macro-roles in tour escort interpreting. In the following part, the author deconstructs the roles of escort interpreters as "recipients/listeners" and "speakers" based on personal tour escort interpreting practice.

A. Tour Escort Interpreters as "Recipients/Listeners"
On December 5, 2018, on the occasion of International Volunteer Day, the author of this paper participated in a voluntary activity, which aims to introduce to students in remote areas knowledge about aeronautics by Chinese students and let international students experience real images of remote areas in China. On the morning of that day, after participants got on the bus, a teacher asked the author to interpret for him in order to help international students better understand what he said. After he finished a few sentences, he stopped talking and turned toward and looked at the interpreter for a second to let him start interpreting.
In general situations, interpreters are like a "transparent glass" in conversations, and speakers in conversations often neglect them, so interpreters are "unaddressed recipients" [8]. From this point of view, in the above situation, before the teacher inferred the interpreter that he should interpret with his eyesight, the "addressed recipients" were the Chinese students and international students on the bus, while the interpreter was an "unaddressed recipient". However, as Goffman pointed out that speaker's gestures and eyesight, as paralinguistic information, play important roles in conversations [4]. When the teacher stopped talking and then let the interpreter to interpret with his eyesight, the object of his visual attention shifted from the Chinese students and international students on the scene to the interpreter. Therefore, at this moment, the interpreter became a "listener/recipient" of the "main conversation", and his role changed from "unaddressed recipient" to "addressed recipient".

B. Tour Escort Interpreters as "Speakers"
In Goffman's Participation Framework, "speakers" can be deconstructed into "animators", "authors" and "principals". Interpreters also undertake these three roles in their interpreting activities.

1) Tour escort interpreters as "animators"
When an interpreters plays the role of "animators", they are like a "talking machine" or "sounding box", which means they interpret without making any change to the source languages, adding personal emotions and are not responsible for the contents of their words [4]. Interpreters may play the role of "animators" in two situations: 1) "repeaters of the original words" [8], that is, to convey the original sounds without any change. 2) Interpreters interpret the source languages into the target language word by word without any structural adjustment [10]. In the following part, the author takes the examples from the above interpreting practice to analyze the role of "animators" taken on by interpreters.

Example 1:
The teacher: 同志们，大家上午好！首先，欢迎大家参 加此次活动！ Interpreter: Good morning, everyone! First of all, I welcome you all to participate in this activity.
When interpreting the sentence "首先，欢迎大家参加此 次活动" , the interpreter interpreted "首先" into "First of all", "欢迎" into "welcome", "大家" into "you all", "参加" into "participate in", and " 此 次 活 动 " into "this activity. Although the interpreter added several words, which are "I" and "to", he interpreted the original sentence from word to word and did not change the structure of the original sentence. Therefore, the interpreter played the role of "animator".

Example 2:
When international students were invited into the classroom and interacted with local Chinese students, a French student shared his study in France with local Chinese students.
The International Student: Da Jia Hao! My name is… Interpreter: 大家好，我是…… In order to narrow the emotional distance with the local Chinese students, the international student used the Chinese pinyin "Da Jia Hao" to greet them. Because the audience of the source language is local Chinese students, the interpreter repeated the Pinyin of "Da Jia Hao!" when interpreting in order to achieve the effect of narrowing the emotional distance between the international student and local Chinese students. The interpreter at this moment again played the role of "animator".

2) Tour escort interpreters as "authors"
When undertaking the role of "authors", interpreters select relevant sentiments/contents to express and the words containing the sentiments/contents, then draft and rewrite the sentences [4]. When drafting and rewriting the sentences, they use such interpreting skills as deleting words, adjusting word orders and adjusting logical structures. When taking on the role of "authors", interpreters are responsible for their use of languages rather than the contents of utterances [8]. In order to illustrate the role of "authors" undertaken by tour escort interpreters, the author of this paper uses interpreting examples from a voluntary tour escort interpreting activity-"Album of Xi'an" in 2021.
At 8 p.m. on May 22, 2021, the author was invited as a voluntary interpreter for a tour escort interpreting from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. next morning. During the process, the author worked as an interpreter for Professor Gao Lin'an from Xi'an University of Finance and Economics to show international friends around some scenic spots of Xi'an City Wall to help them gain more knowledge about it. After undertaking the task, the interpreter contacted with Ms. Ji, the person in charge of the activity, but he did not talk with Professor Gao about some details concerning speaking and interpreting.

Example 1: Professor Gao: 明西安城墙是明初在唐长安皇城的基础 上建筑起来的。
Interpreter: Xi'an City Wall of the Ming Dynasty (from 1368 to 1644) was built on the foundation of the Chang'an Imperial City Wall of the Tang Dynasty (from 618 to 907) in the early Ming Dynasty.
In this example, as "明" and "唐" involved knowledge regarding dynasties in China's history, if they were directly interpreted into "Ming Dynasty" and "Tang Dynasty", the international friends may find it difficult to understand. Therefore, when interpreting, the interpreter added information about the starting and ending time of "Ming" and "Tang" dynasties which are "from 618 to 907" and "from 1368 to 1644" to help the international friends to better understand and remember the contents introduced, thus acting as a "supplementer".
When introducing Xi'an, Professor Gao used four Chinese idioms "气候适宜", "土地肥沃", "物产丰富", "风景秀 丽" , which makes the original speech full of structural beauty, highlighting the great advantages of Xi'an in its climate, land, products and landscape. When interpreting, the interpreter did not interpret according to the structure of the source speech, but adopted the strategy of paraphrasing-extracting and conveying the meaning of the Chinese idioms and abandoning their structural beauty. Therefore, the interpreter here were an "explainer".

3) Tour escort interpreters as "principals"
Finally, interpreters undertake the role of "principals" included in "speakers", which means that interpreters express their own views, beliefs and suggestions when interpreting [8] and are responsible for the contents they add.
The author exemplifies this role by using the voluntary interpreting for "Album of Xi'an" mentioned in Section 3.2.2. After accepting the task, due to the fact that it was too late, the interpreter did not contact with Professor Gao to discuss matters concerning speech and interpreting. In addition, Professor Gao seldom had personal interpreters with him when holding activities, resulting in the interpreter playing the role of "principals" for several times.
On the day of the activity, Professor Gao described to the international friends the development history of Xi'an City Wall and its overall layout. When talking, Professor Gao didn't notice that he had to give the interpreter time to interpret after a period of time, so he kept talking for nearly 5 minutes to introduce Xi'an City Wall and he did not plan to pause. In order to better convey the information to the international friends and let them understand the relevant Chinese cultures, the interpreter walked closer to Professor Gao and whispered to him: "Professor Gao, please pause after you have talked about 3-5 minutes and give me time to interpret so that your audience can catch you." At this time, the interpreter acted as a speaker in the conversation to exchange his views with Professor Gao, which affected the contents of the original speech. Therefore, the interpreter played the role of "principal".
In addition, when explaining the overall layout of Xi'an City Wall to the international friends in front of a map of Xi'an City Wall, Professor Gao pointed at different parts on the map with gestures and used visual modes to help himself to convey information about City Wall to his audience so that his audience could better understand what he was talking about. However, due to taking notes while listening, the interpreter did not pay enough attention to Professor Gao's gestures and the map. Therefore, when interpreting, the interpreter forgot the location of some specific points on the map that Professor Gao had pointed at. Therefore, he asked Professor Gao:" Professor Gao, where is... you mentioned?" At this time, the interpreter, as an "information inquirer" and a "question raiser", expressed his views during interpreting, and once again acted as a "principal".

A. Speakers' Care for Interpreters
In part 3.1, the interpreter played the role of "addressed recipient" because the speaker shifted his attention from his audience to the interpreter and wanted the interpreter to start interpreting by using his eyesight. This is often the case for tour escort interpreters, because in tour escort interpreting, the settings are not formal and the spatial distance among the speakers, listeners and interpreters is not long. In this situation, the speakers will care more about the interpreters' ability and feelings in order to let the interpreters fully convey what they want to say to their audience, and they even will actively cooperate with the interpreters through their languages, eyesight, gestures and other paralanguage methods, so as to make their audience fully understand them.
1) The significance of repetition of original words in cross-cultural communication Today, countries all over the world communicate with each other more and more frequently, and cross-cultural communication ability is very important. In cross-cultural communication, we need to fully respect other countries' cultures (such as customs, diet, etc.), and languages, as an important part of cultures, should also be respected. As is pointed out by Huang Ying, in cross-cultural communication, respecting and using each other's languages can narrow the emotional distance from each other and make the communication more smooth [11]. Therefore, when speakers speak in the languages of their target audience, interpreters should retain this usage of languages and repeat the original sounds and words when interpreting without any change, which makes interpreters "animators".

2) Differences of language structures between Chinese
and English Differences of sentence structures between Chinese and English are also an important reason for the change of interpreter's roles. For Chinese sentences, they are often connected by meanings, and they often lack subjects and conjunctions; while for English sentences, they are often connected by such conjunctions as "and" and "but", and they have subject(s) [12]. Due to these differences of sentence structures, when interpreting Chinese sentences into English sentences, interpreters must add certain conjunctions and other components so that the interpreted English sentences can accurately convey the meaning contained in the source Chinese sentences. In this case, the interpreters play the role of "authors".
3) The Importance of preparation for interpreting Interpreters' preparations for interpreting like searching for background information and communicating with speakers before interpreting tasks affect their roles, too. For example, in part 3.2.3, the interpreter asked the speaker to pause for a period of time after each speech for 3-5 minutes to give him time to interpret due to lack of communication with the speaker before interpreting, making him play the role of "principal". If the interpreter had contacted with the speaker about the time period for between every two pauses, the role of "principal" could have been avoided.
Therefore, in the future tour escort interpreting, after getting the interpreting tasks, interpreters should try to contact with speakers and tell with them that they should cooperate with the interpreters when talking by the means of gestures, words and eyesight, and that they should pause after certain period of time to let the interpreters interpret. This may effectively avoid the interpreters' role of "principals" and better deliver the information to the target audience.
4) The Importance of multimodal presentation in tourism escort interpreting In tour escort interpreting, settings are relatively open and not formal, and speakers and audience can communicate and convey their ideas through multimodal methods, such as languages, eyesight and gestures [13]. In these situations, in addition to focusing on the speakers' languages, interpreters should also pay attention to the speakers' eyesight and gestures to fully capture the information conveyed by multimodal methods, so that they will not later ask information missed and can avoid the role of "principal".

Ⅴ. CONCLUSIONS
Based on the above analysis, the author of this paper finds that tour escort interpreters will play multiple roles as "recipients" and "speakers" in the process of interpreting. As "recipients", interpreters generally act as "unaddressed recipients", but when speakers want the interpreters to interpret with their eyesight and other gestures, the interpreters' roles will change to "addressed recipients". As "speakers", the interpreter will play the role of "animators" when repeating the sounds and words of the source languages or interpreting the source languages word by word; When adding and deleting elements to/from and explaining the speaker' sentences during interpreting, interpreters undertake the role of "authors"; When interpreters ask the speakers to pause for a period of time for interpreting and ask the speakers for more information, the interpreters play the role of "principals".
The reasons why tour escort interpreters play such complex roles in interpreting are as follows: First, in tour escort interpreting, speakers often pay more attention to the interpreter to make their audience better understand what they say. Also, in cross-cultural communication, speakers use the languages of their audience to narrow the emotional distance between each other, and interpreters with cross-cultural communication ability will retain this cultural element. What's more, there are differences in sentence structures between Chinese and English, and interpreters should make adjustments to the source languages to make the interpreted expressions conform to the structures of the target languages. Furthermore, whether interpreters prepare well for the interpreting tasks also affects the roles of interpreters to a certain extent. Last but not least, in tour escort interpreting, speakers may use multimodal methods such as eyesight and gestures to help them deliver information to their audience, which changes the roles of interpreters.
The complicated roles that tour escort interpreters undertake bring some challenges to their interpreting tasks. To cope with the challenges, interpreters should pay attention to the differences of sentence structures between Chinese and English, contact with speakers before interpreting, discuss matters like time period for pause in conversations with speakers, pay attention to the speakers' use of multimodal methods such as eyesight and gestures of the speaker, and cultivate their cross-cultural communication ability, so that they can improve the quality of tour escort interpreting and perform well in their interpreting tasks.